Thursday, July 6, 2017

That's the manifesto of BIG POND COMICS! I began Big Pond in 2001 with the launch of my online and onGOING webcomic, Dandy & Company and it has expanded as the umbrella under which all of my own creations and key collaborations.

As a solo creator, I've published Dandy & Company, Scarred World: The Chronicles of Aegis, Apparition, Marjorie of the Weirdlings, Finding Dee and The Wellkeeper. Working with other creators like Martin Dunn, Marc Hammond and Valerie Stern, I've helped create Hooray for Harold, FETCH: An Odyssey and Tails to Amaze.

But the one thing all of the comics I've made have in common is that driving creed. I make the comics nobody else is making. The books that I would spend my own money to buy if it was already out there. I make the books that I would want to read.

#FindingDee is a semi-autobiographical look at the life of a 40-something cartoonist trying to find herself, navagate life as a transgender woman, and maintain a career as a cartoonist with a long resume with some guy's name on it.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Check out the premier strip of the new webcomic I'm experimenting with
concerning my thoughts on the trials, tribulations and assorted nonsense
surrounding MY experiences being a transgender woman. Brace
yourselves... That be salty language ahead. Lol.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Hey there, Dee Fish here. For those of you that don't know me, I'm the creator and artist of the webcomic "Dandy & Company" and the graphic novel "The Wellkeeper". As an artist and storyteller, I've also co-created and drew the Hashtag Comics series "Carpe Noctem" and have drawn stories for the IDW comics "Atomic Robo", "Star Mage" and "White Chapel" and the Image Comics "The Perhapanauts" and "The Mice Templar".

That bit of exposition aside, I wanted to do a little "step by step" blog showing the techniques I'm using to bring my latest concept to life, a comic called "Marjorie of the Weirdlings". It's a new comic I'm working on centering on a young Transgender girl named Marjorie that discovers a ring that transports her to a weird and dangerous world of monsters called Weirdlings. But when she's there, she becomes the most powerful Weirdling of them all and has a serious problem: Why go home at all when you discover a magical fantasy world where you get to kick butt.

So here is a step by step of the creation of a single page from start to finish.

Step 1 is the clean line inks. Drawn on a standard sheet of Canson 11" x 17" blue lined comic board, I ink over blue pencils using a Pentel Stylo inking pen and a Pentel Pocket brush. This initial step is purposely free of rendering and is inked in a clean, open style. I scan the art in at high res and place the art in Adobe Photoshop for production.

Step 2 is the rendered inks. Using the same Pentel Stylo, I add rendering to add volume, texture, light and shadows. I re-scan the art at this step, placing it as a separate layer over the clean line inks.

Step 3 is the reduction of opacity on the rendered layer to 50%. This creates the grey rendering level used for black and white printing that I feel gives the art an animated and unique feel.

Step 4 is the application of flat colors to the line art. I decided that this comic really needs COLOR to make the WeirdWorld pop and come to proper life. I used a gradient here for the sickly yellow sky of the Weirdworld which is on a separate layer in Adobe Photoshop.

Step 5 uses the rendering line work to add modeling and depth to the color. Using the rendered line art layer, I create a selection that I can fill using darker, slightly tinted color from the flats. This enables me to give the art a modeled and rounded feel with only the line art and not the colors.

Step 6 applies a painterly texture layer over the background elements to add additional mood and texture. This is applied ONLY to the sky, rocks and smoke and helps pop the characters even more.

From here, it's a matter of adding the lettering and it's on to the next page. I hope you enjoyed this little behind the scenes peak of the Making of "Marjorie of the Weirdlings"!